AIHB Illustration Process

I really wanted to make a super ambitious illustration for EP33, and let no one say I didn't make a strong attempt, because this one absolutely kicked my ass!!! I really wanted it to be perfect, so it definitely went through a ton of changes. I started out with a more rainbow vibe, and I was having a lot of fun figuring out the lighting until I ran into the same problem I did for that extra sketch in the "Liar" illustration. I tend to use the Hard Mix blend mode in Photoshop to get most of my colors and lighting, but sometimes if you overwork the tool too much the colors get all screwy when you merge it all down to export. I included a screenshot of what it was supposed to look like vs the merged version; maybe it's not really noticeable to anyone else but for me it totally ruined the direction I was going in lol. And I knew it was probably gonna get worse if I kept needing to apply more blend modes, so I had to try something different in the end. I literally took an hour just cycling through blend mode combos to figure out what I was gonna do until I got this kinda wine red result which I liked, and got to work making adjustments to the anatomy and working back in fur details. The arm was especially messing with me cuz of the perspective here, it was super difficult getting it to look natural! I had to break his arm a few times to get it to look right lmao, nothing he's not used to! 😊

After figuring that out I hesitantly started to go back in with Hard Mix again, but no matter what I still wasn't feeling it. So I slapped another blend mode over the whole thing, and got this darker result. I actually really liked it but it ultimately wasn't working for a few reasons, mainly that the two eyes and moon were now competing for attention. Also a lot of the detail was getting lost in the darker parts, and overall it wasn't fitting the explosive vibe I was going for. So I finally cracked and overlayed yet another blend mode, Difference I think, and that brought back all the bright colors I wanted. It's a shame though, some of the rendering I did in the dark version turned out really nice! But sometimes you have to sacrifice little wins for the sake of a more harmonious result I guess, so I just did a bit more minor detailing and voila! The Difference mode inverting the color of the moon really helped solve this piece, it puts the focus back to the yellow of the eyes and all. Oh, I also played a lot with noise and the Dissolve blend mode too! It's what causes that grainy effect you can see, I really like the look of it but it bloats the file like craazzyy, this image alone is the same size or bigger than like an 80+ panel episode lol. So when I post to Instagram it's probably gonna just melt on me but what can ya do. Song that inspired this one is Animal I Have Become by Three Days Grace! Genuinely would not be obsessed with werewolves and the whole losing control trope without that song haha, I found it when I was 10 and the rest is history. I'm looking forward to pushing my illustrations even harder, I wanna see how far I can go! I gotta lot of good things cooking I can't wait to share :] Thank you so much for reading & supporting! 🐺❤️